THE CRITICAL REALIST PAINTINGS OF

ELIZABETH MULHOLLAND

JOHN A. WALKER (copyright 2011)

Elizabeth Mulholland, photo courtesy of the artist.

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Elizabeth Mulholland was born in 1956 and studied at Harrow and Glasgow schools

of art during the 1970s. She is a little known and appreciated Scottish painter who

lives far from the London art scene in Dollar, Scotland. In my view, her work

deserves far more attention and recognition on the grounds of its aesthetic quality,

technical achievement and important subject matter. Regarding the latter, she

follows in the tradition of such artists as Hogarth, Gilray and Goya by reflecting

and reporting on the society of which she is a member. Political issues and social
anger often inspire her. Witness the bitter and cruel image of the right-wing Prime

Minister Margaret Thatcher emerging from Number 10 wearing a dress but no

knickers entitled A Cunt on the Way Oot or The Mask Slips (1984). Not surprisingly

this image is so rude or obscene, that several galleries have refused to exhibit it. It

shock-value, therefore, exceeds that of the YBAs.

A Cunt on the Way Oot or The Mask Slips (1984). Oil on paper, 61 x 43 cms. Photo

copyright the artist.

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Mulholland is a committed individual and her art can perhaps best be described as

a type of ‘critical realism’. She is not a prolific artist because each of her works,

based on drawings, photographs and mass media images, is carefully considered

and planned, and takes months to execute. Her technique is painstaking because of

the high degree of realism she seeks and the complexity of such ambitious figure
compositions as Miners’ Strike (1987) and Feudalism 1 (1989). These two works are

clearly attempts to produce contemporary history paintings that depict, in the

former, class struggle in form of a clash between striking miners and the police

acting as repressive agents of the state (the latter were used by a Conservative

Government to destroy the miners’ resistance to the destruction of the coal industry)

and, in the latter, a townscape of contrasting styles of architecture that vividly

encapsulates class divisions and inequalities that persist in British society.

Miners’ Strike: BBC Newspeak “Earlier today scuffles broke out between police and

pickets. Four police officers were injured”, (1987). Oil on canvas, 114 x 152 cms.

Photo copyright the artist.

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Feudalism 1 (1989). Oil on board, 183 x 153 cms. Photo copyright the artist.

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Feudalism 2 (1991). Acrylic on Gore-Tex, 244 x 305 cms. Photo copyright the artist.

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In Feudalism 2 (1991) Mulholland adapts the famous nineteenth century image of

the beehive - a pyramidal and hierarchical layered structure depicting the various

classes and trades of Victorian society - to illustrate the class structure of modern

Britain with its burgeoning under-class.

‘We’ve got police officers who take bribes of £50,000 or E80,000 … recycle drugs …

subvert operations for significant profit” (Quote from ex-Police Commissioner Sir

Paul Condon 1998). (1998), Palette knife, oil on Gore-Tex, 153 x 183 cms. Image

Copyright the artist.

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Mulholland’s jaundiced view of the British police evident in Miners’Strike (1987)

recurs in her 1998 painting ‘We’ve got …’ which presents a frontal view of four
officers (both uniformed and plain clothes) in a line up against a background that

indicates their height. Mulholland’s use of a line up or identification parade

effectively suggests the criminality exposed by ex-Police Commissioner Sir Paul

Condon. The casual and surly bodily attitudes of the officers are particularly well

recorded and the use of a mosaic of pixels to disguise their faces is a highly effective

way of preserving their anonymity while simultaneously referencing the visual

manipulations of video and photographic technologies.

Mulholland’s 1992-94 painting An American Tragedy looks beyond the shores of

Britain to show a mass of people on their hands and knees uncritically worshipping

the Statute of Liberty in New York Harbour. (Their Muslim worship posture

implies a possible future in which the religion of Islam triumphs.) Liberty herself

faces inland rather than towards the Atlantic ocean and her raised torch features

the dollar sign instead of a flame; consequently, it is not the concept of freedom itself

that Mulholland targets but the love of money that dominates the lives of so many in

the West. Encircling the worshippers and the Monument’s base is a Klu Klux Klan

procession to reflect Mulholland’s opinion that the United States is becoming

infested by extreme, right-wing ideologies. On the left-hand side of the picture is the

outline of The Mayflower ship on which the ghosts of the nation’s Founding Fathers

are departing because the American Dream has failed. Despite the pleasant blue of

the sky, this is a deeply pessimistic scenario.

An American Tragedy, (quote from Frank Zappa’s ‘Broadway the Hardway’

album), (1992-94). Oil on canvas, 183 x 305 cms. Photo copyright the artist.

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The Chip-Eaters” (1997) is an oblong, social realist painting depicting pensioners

drinking tea and smoking fags in what appears to be a cheap, semi-official canteen.
A notice for a job training scheme can be seen on a far wall.

The chip Eaters (1997). Oil on canvas, 147.5 x 101.5 cms. Image copyright the artist.

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This painting was featured in the National Portrait Gallery’s touring exhibition BP

Portrait Award 1997-98. In fact, it was intended as the left-hand part of a larger

work: it joined up with Cogwheeels, Unemployment Centre (1997). The latter depicts

a Welfare Rights Notice Board with a Class-War jacketed figure (seen from the

rear, on the right) and others crouched over low tables. The people are situated at
the bottom and margins of the composition and the large empty space above them,

which is so striking, appears to oppress them. Alienation, poverty and resignation

are in the air.

Cogwheeels, Unemployment Centre, (1997), oil on canvas, 295 x 101.5 cms. Image

copyright the artist.

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Tribute Paintings

Like so many recent artists, Mulholland is not averse to depicting celebrities but she
is discriminating in her selection and prefers to depict those famous for real

achievements; for instance, she has depicted the veteran Labour politician Tony

Benn, the radical rock star John Lennon tragically murdered in New York in 1980,

and the Jamaican reggae musician Bob ‘rasta’ Marley (1945-81). (She calls such

works ‘tribute paintings’; two could also be described as ‘mourning works’.) In Rat

race (1982) Marley’s face is not depicted directly (as in a traditional portrait) but

indirectly on the surface of a lurid yellow games machine such as one finds in public

houses or arcades. One can also discern smaller portraits of famous individuals

such as Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso - the creator of Guernica - and Marcus

Garvey. This machine is also labelled ‘rat race’ to draw attention to Marley’s lyrics,

to complement his ‘Rat Race’ song (on his 1976 album Rastaman Vibration) and to

indicate how the capitalist west has made living a rat race. Words and phrases often

appear in Mulholland’s pictures to add further layers of meaning. For instance, next

to the machine’s operating buttons are the words ‘destruct’, ‘retain control’ and

‘revolution now’ while on the side of the machine are the words ‘exploit power’ and

‘equality’. Incidentally, her use of spots was ahead of Hirst and his ‘spot’ paintings.
Ratrace (tribute to Bob Marley), (1982), Oil on canvas, 92 x 97 cms.

Photo copyright the artist.

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The Murder of John Lennon (1986-2008). Oil on canvas, 122 x 102 cms.

Photo copyright the artist.

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Lennon too is not represented conventionally but screaming in pain and falling

forward at the moment of his violent death from bullets in the back. He was one
celebrity who paid the ultimate price for worldwide fame. With heavy irony,

Mulholland shows Lennon wearing a white T-shirt with his famous plea to

humanity - ‘Give peace a chance’ - emblazoned upon it.

Portrait of Tony Benn, (2001-2002). Oil on canvas, 122 x 127 cms.

Photo copyright the artist.

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The most traditional portrait of the three tribute works is of a seated Tony Benn (b.

1925). (This painting is also the best known of Mulholland’s works because it has

appeared as a book cover illustration - Free Radical: New Century Essays,

[Continuum, 2004] - and as the cover image of a CD of Benn’s speeches - Tony

Benn’s Greatest Hits [Politico‘s Media, 2004]. Benn himself has encouraged and

supported Mulholland’s art.) Benn’s elderly creased face, determined expression

and direct gaze towards the viewer indicate his strong personality and his long years

of experience and political struggle both inside and outside Parliament. Light falls

on Benn’s left-hand side to symbolise the idea ‘leading light of the Left’. His left

hand rests on House of Commons notepaper - a memo to himself reminding him of

Caroline Benn’s publisher (his wife wrote a book about Kier Hardie), a Clause Four

campaign meeting and an TV interview appointment. This document also stands as

a token for the many thousands of letters, speeches, articles, etc., that Benn has

written over the decades. He is shown in a relaxed pose in his shirtsleeves with his

collar loose as if at the end of a day’s campaigning but still ready to continue the

fight. The colour of his politics is formally signified by the intense, saturated

crimson red of his tie, braces and the wall behind him.

Satirizing the Art World: It’s wot you can get away wiv @ F.Alls.con

During 2010-2011, Mulholland’s anger and satirical gaze turned towards the bad

and mediocre art typical of the fashionable British art world. Her primary targets

were the YBA artists that supercollector Charles Saatchi helped to make famous;

namely, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, the Chapman brothers, Sarah Lucas, Marcus
Harvey and Martin Maloney. Some of their well know art works are shown being

excreted from the rear of Saatchi’s first gallery in St John’s Wood to end up as

rubbish in skips. The exception is Antony Gormley’s public sculpture The Angel of

the North that presides over a tip - like a monument - on the far right of the

composition. Gormley was not an artist Saatchi collected and he enjoys a degree of

acclaim from the art world and the general public; nevertheless, Mulholland

regards him as a poor public artist. The long rectangular format of the support

derived, of course, from the notorious billboard poster that Saatchi & Saatchi

produced for the Conservative Party in 1978 showing a line of unemployed people

plus the slogan ‘Labour isn’t working’. This explains the presence of the expression

‘Ain’t workin’ in Mulholland’s pictorial critique. The snaking line of skips and

waste in her painting echoes the line of unemployed in the Saatchi political poster.

Its ‘S’ shape also signifies the first letter of the supercollector’s surname.
It’s wot you can get away wiv @ F.All.con, (2010-2011), oil on board, 198 x 107 cms.

Copyright the artist.

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Unlike some famous female artists, Mulholland is not obsessed with her body and

autobiography. The public nature of her themes surely means that her work

deserves to be represented in public collections and museums.

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John A. Walker is a painter and art historian. He is author of several books on art

and mass media, and art and celebrity.